Beach Grass Café | 159 S Highway 101, Solana Beach, CA 92075 | 858.509.0632
After having a great experience at their Poway location, I noticed a 50% off dinner promotion at their Solana Beach spot. That was enough incentive for me to gather the troops and head over for some discounted dishes.
Since everything was on special, we decided to share some appetizers before dinner. We ordered the tasty sounding fried calamari with wasabi aioli and their hand-cut fries with homemade ketchup. To our dismay, there was only like 5 pieces of calamari in the entire order and the waitress arrived with a bottle of Heinz instead of what we thought might be something homemade. The calamari tasted decently enough but would not have nearly been worth the full price of $10. The fries and ketchup had us totally perplexed and we finally asked if there was in fact a homemade ketchup. Only after we had finished the fries did the fresh stuff finally arrive and it was actually very good. Unfortunately, the only thing we had to enjoy with it was our forks since it took so long to arrive. At a full price of $6, we would definitely not order it again.
One of my friends and I decided to go with their rib eye steak (full price of $24) served with garlic mashed potatoes and our other friend went with the pan seared sea bass with ginger Arborio rice. While rib eyes are supposed to be fatty and well marbled, I found my rare steak to be unbelievably fatty and was extremely difficult to eat. It was seasoned just fine and didn’t really need the balsamic reduction on top, but it didn’t really take anything away from the steak either. The sea bass was tender and fatty, just the way I like it, but the carrots were firm and barely cooked at all. The rice was cooked into a kind of risotto which was nice, but the carrots had no business on the plate.
The overall experience was mediocre at best and without the discount, the food is not strong enough on its own to draw me back. Service was lackluster and inattentive and very few trips were actually made to check out our table despite the restaurant being very slow. While I enjoyed breakfast at their Poway location, the dinner menu here was very disappointing.
Food: 6/10
Service: 6/10
Price: $$
Atmosphere: 7/10
September 28, 2009
Beach Grass Café | 12845 Poway Rd #381, Poway, CA 92064 | 858.748.7770
When I’m craving something new to try I can always rely on Yelp for some of the hottest places to check out. Today’s brunch selection was discovered there and after reading the great reviews from community members, decided to head out to Beach Grass Cafe’s newest location in Poway.
A bit far from any body of water, this diner’s menu had everything from eggs and toast to full on entrees. I decided to try their corned beef hash plate with potatoes and sourdough and my friend treated herself to the turkey sausage, spinach, and provolone omelet with wheat (but was mistakenly brought sourdough instead). Considering how tasty the food was, we didn’t really mind the minor mistake and really enjoyed our meals. The corned beef was awesome and seasoned perfectly. Not too salty and perfectly savory, I devoured the entire thing with my gigantic slices of freshly baked sourdough. I’ve never seen such thick slices of bread! Toasted on the outside, the bread had awesome texture and melted in my mouth despite the thickness. My friend’s omelet had a great balance of flavors as well. I’m not sure if the sausage was made in house, but it was some savory stuff indeed. Besides the size of the omelet and toast, the most impressive thing about the plate was the fruit bowl. Filled with fresh cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, pineapple, and blueberries, the fruit unselfish would be worth the price of admission just about everywhere else. There was even a slice of watermelon and orange as garnish.
While Poway tends to be known as sort of a desert for delicious foods, Beach Grass Cafe did not disappoint in the flavor department. Everything about the food was great. The only small gripe I had was with the menu advertising that both potatoes and fruit were included, but when I went to order, was told that it was a typo across the entire menu and that a lot of people complained about that. If everybody is complaining about it, the obvious solution would be to fix the problem and appease the customer instead of leaving the glaring mistake as it was.
While I was a little frustrated with that, the overall experience was enjoyable and I would be likely to return to try something new next time. If you live in the area, this is definitely a place to frequent for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner.
Food: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Price: $$
Atmosphere: 7/10
September 28, 2009